Category Archives: Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

Liz Weir’s Monday Book

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So y’all know that I’m holed up in West Virginia in a gorgeous luxury flat, typing away at a new book. As I won’t be getting much else done these three months, friends and fellow writers have stepped in to cover the Monday book through March. Liz Weir is the first – a longtime friend and magnificent storyteller. Take it away, Liz!

I wonder what American readers will make of this book, gifted to me by my daughter for Christmas?

lost wordsA sumptuously illustrated, coffee-table sized book, which contains magic within its pages. Inspired by the decision of the Oxford Junior Dictionary to remove 50 ”nature” words from its pages to replace them with words such as “broadband” and “attachment” . It has been recognised that there is a connection between the decline in natural play and children’s wellbeing so for me this is a partial antidote.

In this book Robert MacFarlane decided to explore words from the wild and with illustrator Jackie Morris they have produced a beautifully crafted book which helps young and old alike reconnect with wild experiences. The illustrations in watercolour and goldleaf do perfect justice to the text. It should be pored over rather than read cover to cover at one sitting, containing as it does acrostic “spell” poems intended to be read out loud, stunning images and a richness of language often lost to many of us.

Words like “acorn”, “bramble”, “kingfisher” “heather”, words which roll off the tongue, and yet which can so easily be forgotten. Often we talk and write about conservation but unless we retain the words to describe the beauties of the natural world they can disappear from our conversation.

Apart from the delight of simply exploring its pages I intend to use the book to work with young people during creative writing sessions. While I generally try to encourage them to find the very “best” words when writing poems, Lost Words will provide an added stimulus.

Visually, it is a lovely book, and while the librarian in me might ask where folks will shelve this large tome, I urge people to acquire a copy for the sheer delight of exploring it. The author encourages readers to “seek, find and speak”. Please do!

As one who is very reticent about letting other people choose my books I realise that my daughter knows me very well. What better gift for a storyteller and lover of language, or in my opinion for anyone?

Liz Weir is a storyteller from the Antrim Glens in Northern Ireland. Visit her website.

Christmas Cheer – –

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Jack’s Wednesday guest post finally makes it – –

Wendy and I spent Christmas with her parents in Knoxville as we usually try to do. They have always been gracious and welcoming to me and for that I am always thankful.

When they came over to Scotland almost twenty years ago for our wedding (the first time they had ever been out of the US), they were enchanted by my country and still keep up with folks over there through the internet.

One thing that Wendy’s mom sampled there was ‘chicken tikka masala’ and she always hankered to have that bright red delicacy again. So this Christmas I decided to make her some and prepared by purchasing the necessary sauce from Trader Joe’s and then googled to find out how to get the red color into the chicken. To my horror it turned out to be red food dye!

She was disappointed but agreed to try my pale orange chicken concoction instead. Despite me being the only person in the company who actually likes curry, she gamely tucked into the non-red delicacy. There was quite a lot left, which I look forward to finishing in due time! Pat reminds me very much of her own Mom, Wendy’s Nanny, who once prepared for me three different kinds of porridge for breakfast to show me I was accepted into the family.

Wendy’s dad, however has much more conservative tastes in food (and other things) and has, I think, always used me as a kind of barometer for measuring how ‘the rest of the world’ thinks. I actually don’t mind that too much as we are in many ways mirror images of each other in our political and societal views. Our sources of news are diametrically opposed and we usually see current events in very different ways. I’m often surprised by how much we agree on, however, and I’m grateful to him for being much more open with his views than I’ve been prepared to be with mine (although I’m sure he has me pegged).

They must both have had severe misgivings when Wendy announced our engagement – to marry a foreigner and one so many years older than her!

The last time we were all together was to observe the total eclipse of the sun – but yet, here we are all still – – – and the sun has not fallen from the sky!